~ Covering the Kingdom of Æthelmearc of the SCA

Quivers and Quarrels: the Known World Archery Newsletter

When you access your Kingdom newsletter on the SCA website, you’ll see a folder for Quivers & Quarrels, the Archery Community Newsletter. Q&Q is also freely available for all on the official SCA Q&Q website. The website also hosts several inter-kingdom archery competitions and individual Kingdom Royal Rounds score pages. If you participate in SCA archery, this is the publication and website for you! We interviewed both the founder of the newsletter, Sir Jon Fitz-Rauf, and the current editor, Sayako Enoki.

Sir Jon FitzRauf, photo courtesy of Sir Jon.

Sir Jon, how did the newsletter get started?When the BoD first announced that the kingdom newsletters could be published in electronic format, I thought that it would useful for the archers of the SCA to have a Society wide archery newsletter that might help to make us a more cohesive group. Therefore, I asked the BoD if newsletters for SCA activities could also be published this way. At the next BoD meeting, they gave permission for the creation of electronic newsletters for SCA activities.

I then contacted the Society Publications Manager to learn what was needed to set up an electronic archery newsletter. After doing that, I sent out posts to some of the SCA archery email groups to find volunteers to edit and run the publication. Since I had absolutely no background in publishing anything, I knew I needed to find people with the proper background.

Our first editor for Quivers and Quarrels was LindaRose Meyers of Caid who said that she had the necessary background. I started putting out requests for articles from my various Society wide archery contacts. We had a good response and the first issue came out in Spring of 2013. LindaRose was the editor until the Fall issue of 2013. The position was taken over by Linda Tsubaki of AnTir with the Summer edition of 2014.

I would like to thank all those that submitted articles to Quivers and Quarrels. And I would request that anyone who has an archery-related article that they would like to see published send it in to Quivers and Quarrels.

Sayako Enoki with her son Nicholas on the archery range.

Sayako, tell us a little bit about yourself.I don’t have much of an SCA past to speak of. I went to my first event in 1992, and it was a magical experience that captured me. I began my journey into the Dream in the then-Shire of Dragon’s Lair (which later became a Barony) in An Tir. For many years, the SCA was a hobby to pour creative energy into with my friends, and to escape the modern world for weekends here and there. There were a handful of years where the demands of life meant that I didn’t play at all, though the SCA was always a part of me. My adult life has been very, very dominated by modern pursuits and obligations, so I have not had the opportunity to earnestly give in service until recently. My SCA resume is completely bare. I have no awards. I still can’t make it out to many SCA things, but I can sure use my laptop and the internet to give in service to the Known World. The internet is a wonderful, flexible thing.

Beyond archery in the SCA, which I have been doing off and on for about 20 years, I am pretty wicked with a sewing machine. One of my favorite things is introducing newcomers to the idea of learning to make stuff instead of buying it. I am also a lifelong horseperson. I own two horses and dabble with mounted archery. I have enjoyed playing with thrown weapons, I am exploring new skills with leather crafting, and I love to introduce the Dream to those who have never heard of the SCA. Combat archery is at the top of my list of new things to start doing, and I look forward to raising my children in the SCA. Both of them will be in youth armored combat this summer. My daughter will turn six in a few months, and will be a force to reckon with on the eric once she armors up. She’s pretty darn fearless about clobbering the snot out of her older brother. I also bought my eight year-old son his first bow last summer. We haven’t had much opportunity for him to practice, but we have a little archery range in our basement, and summer break is coming.

Tell us about taking over the Q&Q Editor’s position.I took over as the Chronicler for Quivers & Quarrels in the summer of 2014. It was still a very new publication, having only had three previous issues. I was hesitant at first to apply for the position. I worked on the production side of yellow pages for several years, and I have done volunteer freelance graphic design and technical writing for nonprofit programs. I knew how very time consuming creating a digital magazine would be, but two things really excited me about Quivers & Quarrels. The first was that it is the only free, SCA-wide recurring publication for an entire martial community, and the second was that I would have the freedom to have full creative control. It is rare to find opportunities with such unlimited potential. Putting an edition of Quivers & Quarrels together often drives me insane, but seeing glimpses of its impact on the community is very gratifying, and is its own reward.

I have always struggled with the reality that communities in the SCA tend to be decentralized and disconnected from each other. It’s just the nature of the game that we play, and coordinating a global game through the efforts of volunteers with little funding is necessarily limited. Most of these communities were also established well before the internet and social media became important communication tools. Our communities are most vigorous in local pockets. However, we miss the opportunities that engaging with other local communities can offer because we have had limited means to connect with them. Quivers & Quarrels can help to fill that gap for the archery community. It has quite a ways to go before it is able to touch every archer in the Society, but the potential for Quivers & Quarrels to do a world of constructive good is enormous. It’s that potential that excites me. Strong kinship grows our capacity as a community, and it grows our ability to gain and share knowledge and skills as archers. A publication for the entire archery community can be a powerful and enriching tool, and it is our tool to use as freely and widely as we wish.

We have three main feature sections, and we like to feature each section in every issue as much as possible. We recruit articles for technical knowledge, historical knowledge, and profiles of archers in our local communities who make or have made outstanding contributions to SCA archery programs. We also have sections for editorials and other news, local events, Society-wide competitions, archery challenges, local practices, and photos from the populace of the period items in their kits. When there are enough contributions around a certain genre, we will create a special edition around one topic, like the recent arrow-building special edition. I have discussed merchant listings with our publications manager, and hope to be able to add a merchant section later this year. We also would love to feature photographers and the works of other SCA artisans as they connect their art with the archery community.

We have an active group on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/QuiversQuarrels/, where all of the back issues are available in the “files” section. The files section also contains a host of great archery resources, including a reading list. Outside of the Facebook group, Sir Jon Fitz-Rauf and I post each edition as far and wide as possible, including every SCA-archery Facebook group that I have been able to find, and every SCA-archery internet discussion group that Sir Jon has been able to find. It is also available in the newsletters section of www.sca.org, and from www.scores-sca.org/qnq. We strongly encourage archers to share each edition with their local groups so that we can eventually reach everyone. No permission needed. Please share as much as you’d like to, and please let me know if I can assist.

To all who read and support Quivers & Quarrels, thank you! If you’ve never heard of us, welcome! Happy shooting, and I am looking forward to the future.